Bill Gates Says Economy ‘Bears’ Have Strong Argument on Slowdown; Blames Russia, Covid-19

Bill Gates said interest rates are likely to rise enough to cause a global economic slowdown, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bill Gates said the war in Ukraine “comes on top of the pandemic, where government debt levels were already very high and there were already some supply chain problems.” (AP)

Bill Gates said interest rates are likely to rise enough to cause a global economic slowdown, triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I'm afraid the bears on this one have a pretty strong argument that concerns me a lot,” Gates said Sunday on CNN's “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

The billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder said the war in Ukraine, which sent commodity prices soaring, “comes on top of the pandemic, where government debt levels were already very high and there were already some supply chain problems.”

Many countries, including the U.S., U.K., and India, have started raising interest rates to try to tamp down inflation. That “eventually will result in an economic slowdown,” said Gates, whose $123 billion fortune makes him the world's fourth-richest person in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The International Monetary Fund last month slashed its world growth forecast by the most since the early months of the pandemic and projected even faster inflation because of the war in Ukraine and China's renewed virus lockdowns.